By Anne-Meike Fechter At the height of the European refugee crisis, volunteers delivered goods to makeshift camps in Calais, set up soup kitchens, and helped recent arrivals on the Greek island of Lesvos. But such grassroots humanitarianism does not always play out on Europe’s doorstep. “Citizen aid” – whereby driven individuals set up their own, […]

By Deniz Seebacher **Originally published on Anthropology Matters, 17(2)** Corporations, an omnipresent form of organisation in today’s society, are increasingly called to participate in tackling environmental and social issues such as climate change or refugee crises by ‘taking responsibility’ and supporting governments and civil society. The corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement can be seen as […]

by Tim Perkin Agbogbloshie is an area of Accra, Ghana’s capital, which has become a graveyard for global electronic waste (e-waste). In light of its structural adjustment after 1983, Ghana experienced a deregulation of trade and a sharp decrease in public sector jobs. As a corollary of this, an abundance of e-waste was dumped on […]

by Rebecca Prentice **Reprinted from Journal of Latin American Studies.** The heroic figure of the entrepreneur is everywhere these days. She’s the small-scale ‘micro-entrepreneur’ at the centre of microfinance initiatives aimed at lifting millions out of poverty; she’s the grasping contestant on the worldwide television franchise, The Apprentice; she’s the occupational embodiment of the neoliberal directive […]

by Thomas Chambers In an article in last week’s Guardian, Stuart Heritage argues that “without The Apprentice, Donald Trump would still be a failed boardgame salesman”. Heritage accuses the show of creating politically toxic monsters and of elevating “hair gelled bell-ends” to the level, albeit temporarily, of sainted heroes. He is right. They are bell-ends! However, there […]

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